The piasan (from the Malay perhiasan, “ornament” or “decoration”) was a purely secular feast observed in certain gampongs of Acheh, in which a number of neighbouring villages clubbed together to provide a programme of popular pastimes differing according to circumstances. The piasan was held at various points in the year, but was especially characteristic of the month of Haji, and its amusements ranged from the letting-off of fireworks to the construction of elaborate “firework forts” and the chanting of the rateb pulet and rateb sadati.
The firework fort
The favourite amusement of the piasan was the letting-off of fireworks, and especially the construction of what was called a “firework fort” (kuta bōh apuy). This was formed of the stem of a cocoanut-tree, to which were attached, at different elevations, square horizontal wooden frames. These frames grew smaller as they approached the top, and were fitted with slow-burning fireworks, so that the burning of the structure presented a cascading display of fire descending from frame to frame. The construction was an undertaking of some ingenuity, and the piasan that included a firework fort was a festival for all the inhabitants of the gampong.
Place in the calendar of feasts
Although especially observed in the month of Haji, the piasan was not confined to that month. It might be organised at any time when a gampong or group of gampongs wished to provide a public entertainment, and its secular character placed it outside the cycle of religious feasts such as the kanduri and the maulud. Its nearest analogues were the quasi-religious recitations of the rateb pulet and rateb sadati, which borrowed the name and noise of religious litanies but were essentially popular amusements. The piasan could include such recitations among its pastimes, but its essence lay in the assemblage of amusements — fireworks, games, and spectacles — rather than in any single observance.
Social function
The piasan served as a vehicle for that communal display which the Achehnese loved, and which the religious calendar alone did not sufficiently provide. It was also one of the occasions on which the vows (ka’oy) of the gampong might come due, the rateb sadati or other recitation being the subject of such a vow. The feast thus linked the secular life of the village to its religious aspirations, even while its overt character remained that of a popular festival. The “ornament” denoted by its name was, in the end, the ornament of the gampong itself, decked out for a season in the borrowed finery of fireworks and dance.
See Also
Source
The Achehnese, Vol. I, by Dr. C. Snouck Hurgronje, translated by A.W.S. O’Sullivan, indexed by R.J. Wilkinson. Leyden: E.J. Brill, 1906.